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Antibiotics are a double-edged sword – they should be as toxic as possible to pathogenic bacteria while being harmless to the cells of the human body. An international research team led by the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) has now developed drug candidates that achieve precisely that. The new molecules target a metabolic pathway that only occurs in bacterial cells, thus sparing human cells. The team published its results in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) and the Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) in Würzburg have identified a protein and a group of small ribonucleic acids (sRNAs) in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, which regulate sugar metabolism. These discoveries shed light on how this gut microbe adapts to varying nutritional conditions. The findings deepen our understanding of this bacterium's role in the human gut and may pave the way for new therapeutic strategies to promote health through the microbiota. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) have developed a promising new vaccine technology. Their studies to date show that just one dose of vaccine leads to effective and long-lasting immune protection. The basis of this so-called MCMV vaccine vector technology is the mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV). It acts as a carrier virus that introduces selected antigens of a pathogen to be vaccinated against into the body. In the follow-up project VIVA-VEK-2, which was launched at the HZI at the beginning of January, a proof-of-concept vaccine candidate against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is now to be produced and tested for efficacy and tolerability. The researchers believe that with the new vaccine technology, one vaccine dose could possibly even provide lifelong protection. The project is funded by the GO-Bio initial program of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) over two years with a funding volume of one million euros.

The interdisciplinary project DEFENDER is developing innovative approaches to combat (re-)emerging viruses. The project, coordinated by the Leibniz Institute of Virology (LIV), is being funded with around eight 9.6 million euros as part of Horizon Europe. Almost 700,000 euros of these will go to Prof. Mark Brönstrup, a researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).

A research team from the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) has investigated the distribution and characteristics of multidrug-resistant bacteria in the Baltic Sea. The findings prove that resistant pathogens occur not only in samples taken from clinical settings but also from the environment. The BMBF-funded study also underlines the importance of an integrated strategy for combatting multidrug resistance that takes equal account of environmental and health protection. The results were published recently in the scientific journal npj Clean Water.

Global migration has increased in recent decades due to war, conflict, persecutions, and natural disasters, but also secondary to increased opportunities related to work or study. A group of international experts that collaborate in the Tuberculosis Network European Trialsgroup (TBnet), led by Heinke Kunst from Queen Mary College of London, Berit Lange from the Epidemiology Department at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), Christoph Lange from the Research Center Borstel and Anca Vasiliu from Baylor College of Medicine, has now identified the risk for tuberculosis and comorbidities in migrants to the European Union/European Economic Area and the United Kingdom (EU/EEA/&UK).